Any suggestions?

Alex and I went to visit Nanny and Papaw this weekend while Jason went to Guatemala. She loved running around in their house and had a blast, and she even got to go "swimming" on Saturday night! She was trying to climb all over things while she was there - the high chair, the fireplace, etc. The first time she tried to get off the fireplace she just kind of walked off and fell over, but the second time she figured out to grab hold of something to help her. However, she kept trying to climb onto one of the side tables.

So, this morning I'm cleaning up the kitchen and walk by her room to check in, and she is sitting on the couch, playing with a pair of socks, as content as can be.

This is not good...

It scared me to death, because how is she going to get down? And there's always stuff on her floor that she could fall onto trying to get down? Plus, if she fell off the side, it's a lot further to fall.

I went in and sat on the couch to see what she would do. She cried and cried, which is unusual, but I think it was because she knew she could get up there and wasn't there. I watched her try to get up again, and after about two minutes she used my knee just a little bit and climbed up the couch as neat as anything.

She is now in her crib with a bunch of her toys. The only thing I can think of is to put something on the couch that would prevent her from being able to climb up without being in danger of falling down from the couch. If anyone has any good ideas, please feel free to let me know!

Update on the DQ

And the DQ stands for drama queen. Yes, she has turned into a drama queen recently. Welcome to toddlerhood. She's actually still a really happy kid most of the time, but she is less content to simply stay in her room and play with her toys. She wants to be out and about, running around the apartment. Literally running, too. She grabbed a hold of walking and almost never crawls anymore, and she is fast fast fast.

She was at the doctor about a week and a half ago and weighed 17 pounds, 6 ounces. She's gaining decent weight, and there's usually a weight gain slowdown around this time anyway, but they're still watching her simply because she's small. All of her tests and bloodwork came back perfectly normal, which was great, and she's now drinking real milk. We're also supplementing her diet with pediasure to get some extra nutrition in her. We're wondering if she might be allergic to either that or the milk, but we're keeping a close eye on her. It's been fun now that she's eating more solid foods. She enjoys most things that we give her and is big on wanting to feed herself most of the time. She's a pretty independent kid.

She still isn't really talking at all, but apparently I was a late talker, and you see how much that slowed my talking progress... She understands some words, and I've been trying to teach her parts of the body. However, she's still mostly content to just babble.

She is starting to enjoy putting things into other things, which she didn't do too much before. She can put a blue circle into the opening for the blue circle, which is pretty cool, and she'll put some of her toys on the shelf of a cabinet in her room. She also has started to throw her friends overboard. She has a big collection of stuffed animals in her crib, and sometimes she likes to pick them up one at a time and then throw them over until there are no more, and then she cries until we rescue them. It's pretty funny. I think what she likes most, though, is being read to. She's really grabbed hold of this in a huge way in the past week or so. We've always read to her, but now she is very, VERY determined to have us read to her. You know how she used to bring toys over to me and put them in my lap or shoulder? Well, she still does that, but when she does it with books, she doesn't go get anything else. She stands there and kind of bounces up and down a bit and makes commanding noises until I start reading to her. It's gotten a little out of control. Jason apparently read her three books this morning before I got up, and then when I got up I read her a number of books about six times. And just now she kept bringing me book after book, and sometimes she'll interrupt one to start another. It's adorable and pretty funny. I think her favorite is There's a Wocket in My Pocket.

She's also had a few new experiences. We took her to the zoo a few weeks ago. She wasn't very interested in the big animals that were far away, but she LOVED the smaller animals that were closer. She was fascinated by the turtles swimming around in the tanks, and she absolutely loved some small, monkey type of creatures with bright gold manes. They were really active and would get close to the grass, and Alex loved them! We also took her to the playground and she used the swings for the first time and really enjoys that, although she wasn't overly impressed with going down the slide with daddy.

Last but not least, she has a new morning time. 5:30. Ouch, right? Jason sometimes gets up at that time in the morning anyway, but when neither of us does get up, we'll usually get her milk and give it to her in her crib so that we can get a little more sleep, and she's usually pretty content with that. We usually put her down about 7:30, and unless we have company and she wants to be out playing, she'll usually put herself to sleep after a series of playing with the toys attached to her crib, throwing a few animals overboard, and making a series of squeaks and squawks before she settles down.

Overall, happy, healthy, and growing up more every day.